3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I found this looking for the latest Banks renderings. What exactly are you bitching about?

The picture you have here is a plan for the riverfront park only. So the "mud puddle" isn't part of the park but is actually going to be non park related development. You would have known this had you done some better searching.

Yes the park in the picture you have doesn't exist yet because this is a plan, hence it's something to be created in the future.

Paul Brown stadium did experience cost overruns but that was a problem with the builder and the end cost was still less than half of the $1 billion you said, ($445 million, according to wikipedia). Hamilty county ended up suing the developer over that.

And then the bridge. I have no idea what you're even getting at. You're saying that some idea when the bridge was built (in 1866, just after the Civil War no less) that Cincinnati government did not want it to connect to any roads? Even if that was the case, don't you think they could change their minds 50 or 100 years later, like when it doesn't make any sense to not have it connected? What kind of stupid point is that?

I'll at least give you that the freedom center was a disaster, but everything else seems like some jealousy that downtown Cincinnati is finally developing a well planned riverfront. So what, Covington and Newport still have their nice spots.

Try $605 million (don't evade interest-it's a real expense), plus all the other surrounding "improvements" that had to be made because of it but that don't get directly allocated to the stadium. They don't include the "guaranteed payments" to the billionaires in case the poor folks of Cincinnati don't blow enough money at the park. Mark my words, the full accounting will run north of a $Billion when all is said and done.

Then, we get to the other stadium which should have gone in a mile north at Broadway where it would do some good. Another waist.

The entire main riverfront is hundreds of millions over budget and still incomplete and poorly designed. No Banks. Lots of mud. Stupid waste of the best views.

Need one go on? Hell, they never finished Riverfront stadium in the first place before they tore it down.

The weight of the evidence shows that Cincinnati sucks at pretty much everything they do (and have done in the past 100 years), except being parochial and biased against their more competent and efficient neighbors to the south.

Ok $605 million, that's still not anywhere near the $1 billion you quoted in your picture. As for all the other changes made around the stadium not directly attributed, that's no different than any other stadium ever built. So your beef has nothing to do with the city but with general procedures done regarding stadium construction. Besides, what was the alternative? Let the Bengals leave? Would that have had the effect you wanted it to have?

As for the stadium on Broadway, I won't argue that it may have been a better spot. But that wasn't really up to the city as the Reds insisted on a riverfront location. Again, your beef isn't with the city, it's with the Reds. What's the alternative there? Let them leave too? With both of them gone, how would the city look now?

And I also won't argue that the city has been rather incompetent in the handling of the riverfront. But you seem to be saying that it should just pack up shop and give up. What they're doing now is at least progress, even if it is overpriced. It's certainly better than leaving the riverfront in shambles which it has always been. Do you disagree that it's pretty much always been a black hole? Do you disagree that the current plan is better than whats been there before? Yeah it could have been planned better, but your aggression seems directed at progress itself.

I won't even argue that northern Kentucky has been more efficient (it certainly has) but why the fear of Cincinnati getting better? Isn't that good for everyone? Your anger is totally misplaced. I guess Cincinnati should just remain a black hole of mud on the river. Would that make you happy? Geez.

And what about that bridge comment? What does that have to do with anything? That someone in 1866 was an idiot? Sure, but what's that have to do with now?

Home Sweet

Home Sweet... um... HOME!

(it may need more paint, some trim, and the wrought iron fence installed, but it's no longer "Home Sweet Derelict")

We've been happily married since 2003, together since 2000, and we thought to ourselves, "Hey, let's test the limits of our relationship!" So we're in the process of totally rehabbing an uninhabitable 1868 brick home in Covington Kentucky, for better or for worse, richer or poorer, until one of us kills the other one -- or the renovation project gets finished, of course.

This is our chronicle of our journey into rehabbing/renovation. This blog will hopefully prove to be a resource or even a DIY "renovators' manual" for those who come after us.

Our backgrounds:

She is a creative MBA who got the entrepreneurial bug in 2000, and joined her yet-to-be husband in business. While she has always been handy and crafty, Wife has no professional experience in any of the building trades, nor did any of her immediate family.

He is a long time entrepreneur and newsletter publisher. Not particularly crafty, Husband is reasonably handy and prior to this has had some experience doing stone work, repairing and rebuilding decks and doing smaller repair projects around the house.

In other words, we're rank amateurs figuring this stuff out as we go along.